Lesbian challenges military policy

A decorated McChord Air Force Base major, who was once featured in a national recruiting pamphlet, sued the military Wednesday after she was suspended for being a lesbian.

Expecting her commanding officer to dismiss her after 19 years of service, Margaret Witt, a flight nurse from Spokane, filed an injunction in U.S. District Court in Seattle seeking to prevent her discharge.

Witt's case is one of two active lawsuits, both with local ties, that challenge the constitutionality of the military's ban on openly gay personnel, under a policy known as "don't ask, don't tell." In Boston, a federal court is hearing a case involving a dozen service members, including three from Washington, who want their jobs back.

Dressed in her flight suit and holding her medals and commendation letters, Witt, 42, said that despite the attempts to kick her out of the military, she wants to return to the only life she has known for the past two decades: nine in the Air Force and nearly 10 in the Air Force Reserves.

"My objective really is to go back to my unit, serve my country and help the injured troops that need me at this time," she said at a news conference at the office of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which filed the suit on her behalf. "My unit is my ... family."

A nursing graduate from Pacific Lutheran University in Parkland, Pierce County, Witt joined the Air Force in March 1987 and quickly rose through the ranks. She was included in a 1993 Air Force recruitment pamphlet carrying the headline "Air Force Nursing makes the difference."

Witt, who is technically still a member of the 446th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron at McChord, has provided medical assistance and helped transport injured U.S. soldiers and other multinational-coalition forces in the Afghanistan conflict.

Although she never told colleagues about her sexual orientation, her superiors received a tip. According to court documents, in summer 2004, the Air Force began an investigation and interviewed a civilian who said she had been in a sexual relationship with Witt from July 1997 through October 2003.

A year later, the Air Force ruled her "ineligible" for service and promotion, and Witt, now a physical therapist, could no longer earn "pay or points toward a retirement pension," according to court documents. The ACLU said the Air Force has begun the "paper work" to discharge her.

The Air Force declined to comment.

Witt's attorney, Jim Lobsenz, handling the case on behalf of the ACLU, said the U.S. Constitution "trumps other rules," including the military's ban on gays. In the 1980s, Lobsenz won a landmark case when the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Army could not discharge his client, Sgt. 1st Class Perry Watkins of Tacoma, just because he was gay.

About 650 military personnel were discharged in 2004 because they were gay, according to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, an advocacy group that tracks the issue.

Tan Vinh: 206-515-5656 or tvinh@seattletimes.com